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Category: biological – Page 54

Neuromorphic nanoelectronic materials

Memristive and nanoionic devices have recently emerged as leading candidates for neuromorphic computing architectures. While top-down fabrication based on conventional bulk materials has enabled many early neuromorphic devices and circuits, bottom-up approaches based on low-dimensional nanomaterials have shown novel device functionality that often better mimics a biological neuron. In addition, the chemical, structural and compositional tunability of low-dimensional nanomaterials coupled with the permutational flexibility enabled by van der Waals heterostructures offers significant opportunities for artificial neural networks. In this Review, we present a critical survey of emerging neuromorphic devices and architectures enabled by quantum dots, metal nanoparticles, polymers, nanotubes, nanowires, two-dimensional layered materials and van der Waals heterojunctions with a particular emphasis on bio-inspired device responses that are uniquely enabled by low-dimensional topology, quantum confinement and interfaces. We also provide a forward-looking perspective on the opportunities and challenges of neuromorphic nanoelectronic materials in comparison with more mature technologies based on traditional bulk electronic materials.

Feeling the Beat: Music’s Global Language of Emotion

A study shows music evokes consistent emotional and physical responses globally, driven by inherent biological mechanisms, not culture. Music influences feelings in different body parts based on the emotion it conveys, supporting its role in social bonding.

New research shows that music evokes similar emotions and bodily sensations around the world. The study, by the Turku PET Centre in Finland, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Music can be felt directly in the body. When we hear our favorite catchy song, we are overcome with the urge to move to the music. Music can activate our autonomic nervous system and even cause shivers down the spine. A new study from the Turku PET Centre in Finland shows how emotional music evokes similar bodily sensations across cultures.

Decoding Mental Health With Advanced Brain Gene Maps

Groundbreaking maps reveal the complex gene regulation in brains with and without mental disorders, enhancing the understanding of mental illnesses and potential treatments.

A consortium of researchers has produced the largest and most advanced multidimensional maps of gene regulation networks in the brains of people with and without mental disorders. These maps detail the many regulatory elements that coordinate the brain’s biological pathways and cellular functions. The research, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), used postmortem brain tissue from over 2,500 donors to map gene regulation networks across different stages of brain development and multiple brain-related disorders.

“These groundbreaking findings advance our understanding of where, how, and when genetic risk contributes to mental disorders such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression,” said Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). “Moreover, the critical resources, shared freely, will help researchers pinpoint genetic variants that are likely to play a causal role in mental illnesses and identify potential molecular targets for new therapeutics.”

Charge your Laptop in a Minute? Supercapacitors can help; new research offers clues

Imagine if your dead laptop or phone could charge in a minute or if an electric car could be fully powered in 10 minutes. While not possible yet, new research by a team of CU Boulder scientists could potentially lead to such advances.

Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in Ankur Gupta’s lab discovered how ions, move within a complex network of minuscule pores. The breakthrough could lead to the development of more efficient energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors, said Gupta, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering.

“Given the critical role of energy in the future of the planet, I felt inspired to apply my chemical engineering knowledge to advancing energy storage devices,” Gupta said. “It felt like the topic was somewhat underexplored and, as such, the perfect opportunity.”

Open and remotely accessible Neuroplatform for research in wetware computing

Wetware computing and organoid intelligence is an emerging research field at the intersection of electrophysiology and artificial intelligence. The core concept involves using living neurons to perform computations, similar to how Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are used today. However, unlike ANNs, where updating digital tensors (weights) can instantly modify network responses, entirely new methods must be developed for neural networks using biological neurons. Discovering these methods is challenging and requires a system capable of conducting numerous experiments, ideally accessible to researchers worldwide. For this reason, we developed a hardware and software system that allows for electrophysiological experiments on an unmatched scale. The Neuroplatform enables researchers to run experiments on neural organoids with a lifetime of even more than 100 days. To do so, we streamlined the experimental process to quickly produce new organoids, monitor action potentials 24/7, and provide electrical stimulations. We also designed a microfluidic system that allows for fully automated medium flow and change, thus reducing the disruptions by physical interventions in the incubator and ensuring stable environmental conditions. Over the past three years, the Neuroplatform was utilized with over 1,000 brain organoids, enabling the collection of more than 18 terabytes of data. A dedicated Application Programming Interface (API) has been developed to conduct remote research directly via our Python library or using interactive compute such as Jupyter Notebooks. In addition to electrophysiological operations, our API also controls pumps, digital cameras and UV lights for molecule uncaging. This allows for the execution of complex 24/7 experiments, including closed-loop strategies and processing using the latest deep learning or reinforcement learning libraries. Furthermore, the infrastructure supports entirely remote use. Currently in 2024, the system is freely available for research purposes, and numerous research groups have begun using it for their experiments. This article outlines the system’s architecture and provides specific examples of experiments and results.

The recent rise in wetware computing and consequently, artificial biological neural networks (BNNs), comes at a time when Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are more sophisticated than ever.

The latest generation of Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Meta’s Llama 2 or OpenAI’s GPT-4, fundamentally rely on ANNs.